Oracle Blog

Tuesday Feb 28, 2012

Before the part of Oracle that was then Sun Microsystems moved in, the facility used to be known as the Agnews Insane Asylum. Some of us who worked for Sun at the time thought the image was hilarious. Some thought it was insensitive. Some believed it was a statement about the rise of the corporate state and the demise of benign government. That was the Santa Clara campus back then, a diverse, magical workplace full of people who held strong opinions about everything, yet managed to have a great time together.

Another topic that incites strong opinions among good friends is Oracle Solaris vs Oracle Linux. Which one is better? Which one should I use? Which one should I learn how to use? At our OTN Sysadmin Days, we let you decide. Pavel Anni always opens our OTN Sysadmin Days with a talk about Oracle's dual OS strategy. He explains why Oracle offers two operating systems, and summarizes the main features of each one. Then we split off into two different groups to get our hands on each OS.

One group gets their hands on the ZFS filesystem, virtualization capabilities, and security controls of Oracle Solaris.

The other group gets their hands on the package management tools, services, and runs levels of Oracle Linux, plus its volume management tools and the Btrfs filesystem.

The truly adventurous sysadmins jump between groups. Both groups learn by doing, using the hands-on labs similar to those on OTN's Hands-On Labs page. Why attend an event in person when you could simply work the labs on your own? Two reasons:

Since you are away from the obligations of the data center, you get to focus on working the labs without interruption.

You get help from Oracle experts and other sysadmins who are working on the same labs as you.

I've been to all our OTN Sysadmin Days so far. The sysadmins and IT managers who attended told me that it was time very well spent. However, our attendance has been low. Not sure whether we haven't gotten the word out to enough people, or whether it's just difficult for sysadmins to get away. In any case, if we don't improve attendance, we'll have to cancel OTN Sysadmin Days.

So if you're interested, register now. Santa Clara on April 10 may be your last chance. The event is free. Here's the agenda:

Time

Session

8:00 am

System Shakedown

9:00 am

Oracle's Dual OS Strategy

Oracle Solaris Track

Oracle Linux Track

10:00 am

HOL: Oracle Solaris ZFS

HOL: Package Management and Configuration

11:30 am

HOL: Virtualization

HOL: Storage Management

1:00 pm

Lunch / Surfing OTN

2:00 pm

HOL: Oracle Solaris Security

HOL: Btrfs filesystem

3:00 pm

Presentation: Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center 11g

3:30 pm

Presentation: Setting Up and In-House Development Environment with Oracle Solaris Studio